Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Readjusting thinking

So I spent the last week rather frustrated, because I feel like this semester is a bit of an academic waste. Two of my four classes have almost zero work involved, and the other two are not super challenging either, although I have high hopes that that will change. I was getting cranky about this, and wondering if it was a bad decision to come to Germany.

Then I had a conversation with my father, who managed to cheer me up and give me a new way to think about this semester. He said that I should look at this semester as an opportunity to learn a lot about something I want to learn about. Rather than being frustrated that I'm not learning a huge amount in class, I can use my extra free time to learn a lot outside of class!

Since hearing that, I have been so much more cheerful. It makes perfect sense, and yet I never thought of it! I don't want to spread myself out too thin, so I picked two goals for this semester, besides the inevitable improvement of my German skills. Here is what the goals are:

Work on my Greek. A lot. And hopefully improve it substantially. I have been reading the New Testament with Kevin, but I am also going to get a copy of the Gorgias and read that, since I'm taking a grad class on it next semester.

Get my writing sample for grad school in order. I need to pick a paper I already wrote and lengthen, expand, and polish it. I hope I won't need to write a whole new one.

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Why "Transfigure Nature"?

"It is the pride of humankind--and the hope of Jewish and Christian faith--that though the race be often to the swift and the battle to the strong, this is said of the dash and the skirmish. The longer course is completed and the campaign won by those who rescue the oppressed, shelter the homeless, redeem the cheated, carry the crippled--not by those whose care is for themselves. We do not take our lesson from a nature that fevers, drowns, and devours. We defy and transfigure nature by finding in her victims our most treasured opportunities." From p. 309 of Rachel Weeping by James T. Burtchaell, CSC